#17 Accessing the power that God makes available to covenant keepers.

I recently asked myself, "Do I really know how to access the power God makes available to covenant keepers?"  Pres. Nelson expressed the need for this knowledge but I don't think I ever let it sink in. 

Then I had an experience that left me so desperate for help and healing that my only option was to access God's promised power in my life. It is a bit vulnerable for me to share but the Spirit urged me on. I truly hope you will gain insights that will help you experience healing you never thought possible because that is exactly what happened to me. 

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References:
"Overcome the world and find rest" Pres. Russell M Nelson
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/47nelson?lang=eng

"A Plea to My Sisters" Pres. Russell M. Nelson
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/10/a-plea-to-my-sisters?lang=eng

"Let God Prevail"  Pres. Russell M. Nelson
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2020/10/46nelson?lang=eng

Ezra Taft Benson https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/jesus-christ-gifts-expectations/

Ephesians 2:10
2 Nephi 14 
2 Nephi 9:2
Alma 40:23
D&C 76:43
Jacob 4:9
1 Nephi 17:40
Moses 3:17
Abraham 2:7-8
Abraham 1:18
Helaman 12
Helaman 1:11
Helaman 5:12
Alma 53, 56, &57

Time stamps:
01:50 - President Nelson's instruction that became a personal spiritual call to action.

06:20 - Three unexpected, interconnected messages: the song "Shattered," the Japanese art of Kintsugi, and a scripture in Ephesians.

10:00 - Realizing the pain from the past that was "unknowingly dimming my light."

14:30 - The surprising question God prompted to start the healing process: "How did Satan convince one third of the host of heaven...?"

18:50 - Two core lies of Satan: You can't trust God as your Maker, and He doesn't have the power to redeem you.

21:15 - Alma 40:23 and the temple experience of restoration.

27:40 - Studying the word "workmanship" in Jacob 4:9 and realizing God's power to command us as easily as He commands the mountains.

34:50 - The powerful quote from President Ezra Taft Benson, explained through the lens of covenants.

40:55 - Why the phrase "less than the dust of the earth" (Helaman 12:7) makes sense.

46:50 - A personal declaration of faith and covenant power.

Transcript

President Nelson said:

"Each person who makes covenants in baptismal fonts and in temples and keeps them, has increased access to the power of Jesus Christ. Those who live the higher laws of Jesus Christ have access to his higher power. Thus, covenant keepers are entitled to a special kind of rest that comes to them through their covenantal relationship with God."

Welcome to the Hope a Smiling Brightly podcast, sharing stories and ideas that will empower you to overcome doubt, cultivate the kind of faith miracles are made of, and experience the transformative grace of Christ. Whatever it is, Christ is the answer.

I am your host, Amber, known as Amber Dawn Pierce on social media. Hopefully, most especially known as someone who loves to share the light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

You are listening to episode 17, knowing how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers.

Got a lot of new people here, so I just want to thank you for being here, and thank all of you who have been sharing this podcast with your family and friends. I was stunned when a friend recently reached out to me to share that this little podcast made it into the top 50 podcast list. I had never thought to check because honestly, I wasn't expecting something like that to happen. But I know it's because of you and your desire to share light with others. So thank you, and thank you for subscribing and leaving your rating and review so we can reach more people seeking the light of Christ.

Okay. Let's talk Alaska real quick. Our Alaskan cruise in the summer 2026 is filling up, so I can't wait to see many of you there. I'm telling you, if there's ever one place you want to visit via a cruise, it's Alaska. So why not go with a group of people where you can instantly create a wholesome atmosphere with uplifting conversations and create friendships as we eat together, go on private excursions together, and enjoy inspiring presentations twice a day during the days at sea. Go to Bountifultravel.com to learn more, and I will also leave the link in the show notes.

All right. Are you excited to get into this today? I want to tell you how I decided on this topic. As I was recording episode 15 of this podcast, I quoted something by President Nelson. It was a list of things that he was pleading for women to do. And as I read one of those things, it really stood out to me when he said, we need women who know how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers.

And as I read that, you know, I could look at the other things on the list and I was like, "Okay, yeah, I feel like I'm doing that. I feel like I know how to do that." But when it came to this one instruction, the Spirit was like, "Amber, there's something you need to know more about how to do this."

If God is asking us to fill our lamps, trim our wick, and shine the light we were created to be in these last days, and not just any light, but covenant light, we can't just say, "Yeah, I can access God's power." We must understand specifically how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers.

In this process:

1. First, we must know what this power entails and why. For what purpose do we want or need, desire to use this power? We have to act with knowledge and intention, or this power will sit unused. And how sad is that?
2. Second, it must align with God's will and purposes, or it is not God's power that we are working with.
3. And that's why, third, it is helpful to see things we are turning to for peace and power that are not of God. Recognize the difference between God's power, our power, and Satan's power in the context of trimming our wicks so that the light of Christ can shine bright through us.

I recently had an experience in accessing this power in order to remove something that was dimming my light and preventing me from doing God's work.

President Nelson recently taught the importance of experiencing fully the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, filling our lamps with that pure olive oil through forgiveness, healing. And he explained that this would help us be more effective in helping to gather Israel. So if you don't mind, I'd like to take you on a personal journey to illustrate, through a real life experience and example, how I gained a greater understanding of what it is to know how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers.

One day, in early June of 2025, three things unexpectedly stood out to me. But I didn't know why or where to place them.

First. As I was driving down the road, a song called "Shattered" by Blanca started playing in my car and I began to cry without understanding why, when I heard these lines: "If you shatter every piece of you that's on the floor, he can restore, and you'll be even stronger than before."

Second. I happened to also be driving to an activity that I had no idea what we'd be doing at the activity, but when I got there, I was pleased to find out we were going to be doing Kintsugi. If you don't know what Kintsugi is, it is a Japanese art where instead of throwing away a broken vessel, it is taken and they use a gold epoxy to put that vessel back together, and it ends up even more beautiful than before.

So first, everyone there had to pick the bowl that they wanted to break and then put back together. As we prepared to break our bowls, I was warned that some bowls would break in such a way that a little hole would be left. As I placed a cloth over my bowl, pulled the hammer back, ready to strike, I had already decided that I only wanted my bowl to break into a few pieces. I wanted to easily be able to put the pieces back together, and I certainly didn't want to have any irreparable holes. I wasn't thinking of the symbolism of this at the time. I just wanted something pretty to put on my shelf. So you can guess what happened. Everyone else's bowl broke into 3 or 4 neat pieces. Mine shattered.

Still, I took on the challenge, determined to repair every piece. That's generally been my approach to life. If I face a problem, I do whatever it takes to fix it, refusing to be satisfied if I can't. As I say that, maybe that's why I'm not often satisfied. So as I came to the last little pieces, I became frustrated at the impossibility of the task. Too many little shards had broken off, and the pieces just would not come together anymore. Then someone looked at me and said, "It's usually the people who don't want a hole that end up with one."

Well, that only set my determination, and I picked up another small piece to try again. And then the Spirit spoke to my mind and said, "Amber, there are some things that are not yours to fix. Things that only I can fix. But you have to let me."

Third. That evening, as I was trying to process, I randomly opened up my scriptures and landed on Ephesians chapter two, verse ten: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." And as I read that verse, into my mind came an image of clay being formed in the words, "hath not the potter power over the clay?" And then I opened my scriptures randomly again, and came to a verse that was already very precious to me from Second Nephi chapter 14, where it says, "Zion and her daughters shall be redeemed, and cleansed."

I was confused at why the Lord was giving me these repeated out of the blue messages, but it wasn't long before I learned why. The next day, the Spirit helped me see something I had been completely unaware of for almost 40 years, something that was unknowingly dimming my light and hindering my effectiveness as a woman in Zion.

I had done a pretty good job at finding the broken pieces in my life that felt easier to put back together, but there were broken pieces in me that felt too complicated or overwhelming. So I convinced myself for years that they weren't actually broken. All of the sudden, I could see and feel pain from the past that I had never healed from experiences that my parents tried to protect me from, adversity that I neatly tucked away because I was unable to process it as a child and teenager, unwilling to acknowledge it. It was easier to pretend that all was forgiven, healed, and consecrated for my good.

With this realization, though, came all of the pain, resentment, trauma, shame, grief, rejection that I had never allowed myself to feel. It was as if I was experiencing these harrowing things all over again. But for the first time, because now it was from an adult perspective. Also recognizing the ripple effect these wounds continue to have on me physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and weaving into my relationships. I found myself moving back and forth through intense sorrow and then to anger. Weeks past, and it was absolutely debilitating for me. I wanted mostly to sleep because if I was awake, I was either crying or trying to hold back tears. It felt so heavy at times that I literally did not have the strength to sit upright. I had to sink to the ground. I all but disappeared from social media and put my podcast aside, even though I had promised a concluding episode to my series on the role of women in Zion. My brain was just consumed and I couldn't process anything.

My husband worried and prayed for me and blessed me, but I felt completely frozen. That is until I started to remember and comprehend the purpose of those messages God had sent me. Just a few weeks prior, God gave me a sense that I had been given gifts and tools before I was ever born to help me in this specific circumstance, and guided me to another hope filled scripture in Second Nephi, chapter nine, verse two: "The people that walked in darkness hath seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." A sweet reassurance that those who experience darkness are also blessed with incredible light. I trusted in his promises, and I did what I knew would help. I went to the temple and I continued opening my scriptures.

Now I know I won't be able to adequately describe what the Lord taught me. So I pray for the spirit to do the communicating here. And I want to say that I know your experiences may not be similar to mine, but I know each of us has walked in darkness at some point. We all have a battle. We must fight something that is dimming our light. I hope you can take what I'm about to share and use it to call upon covenant power to remove whatever may be hindering you.

First, I knew I needed to ask God a question, but like I said, my brain so froze and I had no idea where to start, what questions to ask. And so I asked God to show me what question I needed to search the answer to. And I was kind of surprised by what question came to my mind: "How did Satan convince one third of the host of heaven to forgo the experience of having a body?"

At first I was confused at how this question was going to help me, but I went with it. Now I could do an entire podcast episode on the insights I gained, but I will focus on the one that God was directing me to in this particular journey. In answering that question, first, I learned Satan would have had to convince those spirits that they could no longer trust Heavenly Father as their maker. When they rejected the plan of the Father, they also rejected any further connection with him in their progression and creation. They forfeited the opportunity to have Heavenly Father as their maker, creator. He was creator of their spirits, but would not be a creator of their bodies. Not only that, in choosing Satan's plan, they were choosing Satan as their God, their maker. Remember, this is what Satan wanted: to be a God, to have all the glory for himself. So he separated himself from God and built his own pathetic kingdom with subjects to rule over.

Second, Satan would have had to convince those spirits that Heavenly Father did not have the power He claimed to have. Heavenly Father's first promise to us in his plan is that he would send His Son, and his power would restore and redeem us. I don't believe we would have accepted the opportunity to go to a fallen world, experience the joys and sorrows of mortality without a sure way to return to the glory and the place we loved. Satan would have had to create doubt that Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, would indeed be able to restore and redeem us from any and all we might face in mortality.

So why was it important for me to understand these things? Well, because Satan has not changed and he still works to convince us. We cannot trust God as our maker and that we cannot be restored and redeemed. Also, I believe God was trying to show me something I didn't fully understand, and that is the magnificent power we invoke when we choose him as our maker.

As I sat in the celestial room at the temple, I read this scripture in Alma 40, verse 23: "The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost, but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame." Right after I read that, I turned and looked at this beautiful, perfect and whole vessel sitting on the table next to me, and I felt the power of this promise that God can and will restore all that is broken as we choose him as our maker. And we don't have to wait for that promise of redemption and restoration until we die and are resurrected. He is working with us now and always, just as we can be born again. We can experience a type of resurrection before the final resurrection, where something that has died inside us can be brought back to life and even more glory, never to be the same again.

In D&C 76:43, it declares that Jesus Christ glorifies the Father and saves all the works of his hands, except those sons of perdition who deny the Son after the Father was revealed to him. I don't think we can completely fathom what power we are accessing when we declare rather than deny that we are his workmanship and allow him to be our maker. I hope the Holy Spirit will communicate the significance of what I'd like to convey next, in the power of choosing God as our maker.

At this point, it was clear God was communicating to me that there was something more I needed to understand about the significance that I was his workmanship. I began to study every scripture I could find with the words maker, creator, workmanship. The first one I went to was when I had studied before and loved. But as I read, I saw something different.

In Jacob chapter four, Jacob explains how difficult it is to engrave on the plates, but he says they do it any way that they may know that we knew of Christ. And what did he go on to explain about him? That the spirit that comes from searching the scriptures, receiving revelation, gives us such hope and faith that we truly can command in the name of Jesus, and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.

And in verse nine it says, "For behold, by the power of his word, man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God, being able to speak, and the world was, and to speak, and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will, and pleasure?"

The first time I ever studied these verses, I recognized how powerful God's Word was. No wonder we are told to be in His Word every single day. His words have power to change us unlike any words of man. But this time I saw something more after the repeated message from the Spirit that I was his workmanship. That word stood out to me differently. So let's go back to it. "Why not able to command the earth or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure?"

Now, I used to think these verses were only referring to trees and mountains, waves of the sea. But that's not God's only workmanship. His children are his most precious workmanship, and he also has a will that he would command for us. I began to understand that all my mind, spirit and body was going through due to the trauma inflicted by others. God also had power over it, and if I would just allow, he would remove it just as easily as he could remove any tree, mountain or sea. The key here is that it had to be both God's will and my will. I knew God could create something new within me, but it was dependent upon my choice.

There are so many solutions we might go to when trying to process trauma, many of which are not very healthy and cause more problems. But this is where accessing the power of covenants comes in, as creation is a continual process. We must continually choose who will be our maker, and God has given us stepping stones on the path to allow more of this power of creation into our lives. This path is the covenant path.

Making and keeping covenants with Heavenly Father is an act of choosing him to be our maker. This action itself draws upon his power. In First Nephi 17:40 it says, "and he loveth those who will have him to be their God. Behold, he loved our fathers, and he covenanted with them; yea, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and he remembered the covenants which he had made."

Now it's going to be fun to look at what was spoken to Abraham when he, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for him, sought for the blessings of the fathers, for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He wanted to covenant with God, but to even be able to choose God. There is something we need first:

In Moses chapter three, verse 17, God speaks some of the most important words ever spoken. We hear them all the time, but may miss the significance of them. God says, "thou may choose for thyself. For it is given unto thee..." In order to give something to someone, it must first be yours.

So let's look at one of the first things God tried to make clear to Abraham as he covenanted with him. These beautiful words are also for us, as we choose him as our maker and covenant with him. It illustrates more clearly what God gave when he gave us something that was his first: our agency.

In Abraham 2, verse 7, he says, "I stretch my hand over the sea and it obeys my voice; I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot; I say to the mountains, Depart hence, and behold, they are taken away by a whirlwind, in an instant, suddenl2y." First, God makes a point of what he can do with the things he has created. They are in his complete command and must submit to his will. In these verses I used to think God was just trying to help us see how powerful he was, but I realize now he was trying to help us see the kind of power over us that he gave away. We are his most precious creation and his one creation that he forfeited control over. God created us. Then turn the power he could have kept over to us, but we would also be able to choose what kind of power we want in our lives.

I don't think I have ever fully understood what it meant that God gave me the gift of agency. He could have kept it, and as his creation I would have had to obey his voice without any choice. Just as all other creations obey his voice.

But here's what's profound. When you look at the very next verse he has just shown all he is able to do just by stretching his hand over his creations. Then what does he say to Abraham now that he has covenanted with him in verse eight? "My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee."

Did you hear that? As we make covenants with God, we are essentially taking the agency he gave us and giving it back to him. And by so doing, we choose to bring his power back into our lives. When we use our agency to still choose what God would command of us and for us, as if he had maintained power over us, it allows him to put his hand over us and do amazing things. We become a creation that obeys his voice for the most magnificent purposes. No wonder we witness God's power in the creation of the world over and over again as we attend the temple.

When we make and renew covenants, it helps me have a greater understanding to a famous quote by President Ezra Taft Benson:

"Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out pe3ace."

This is done through covenants. As he also told Abraham in chapter one, verse 18: "I will lead by my hand, and I will take thee to put upon thee my name, even the priesthood of my father, and my power shall be over thee."

And now these verses in Helaman 12 make a little more sense, or a lot more sense in verse seven: "O how great is the nothingness of the children of men! Yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth." Why are we referred to as nothingness, less than the dust of the earth? Interesting that it is the only thing Moses declared after being shown all the workmanship of God's hands, when he said, "for this cause I know that man is nothing." Which thing I had never supposed. So why? Nothing. Because we are the only creations of all God's workmanship that can make the choice to ignore his voice, that can deny his help and power. In verse eight:

"For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God. Yea, and behold, at his voice do the hills and the mountains tremble and quake. And by the power of his voice they are broken up and become smooth. Yea, even like unto a valley, yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake. Yea, by the power of his voic4e do the foundations rock even to the very center? Yea, if he say unto the earth, move, it is moved."

And there are several more verses after that that show the power of his voice. Yet what does it say at the end of all these verses in verse 23:

"blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God."

"For these are they that shall be saved." It is not that we are nothing. It is that we are nothing without God's power. I have said this before, and I'll say it again.

When President Nelson said,

"Our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, perform some of his mightiest works between now and when he comes again." I believe we are his mightiest works. The most magnificent creation God will transform is not a mountain, the wind, the Red Sea. It is you. We are transformed. We become his hands, voice, legs, mind.

Truly the workmanship of his hands. Imagine. Just imagine what he can do through us. And we access his power by using the agency he has given us to obey whatever he commands. It isn't a single moment. It is a process. After we covenant, we continue to choose him as our maker over and over again.

Something I learned from a podcast with Jewish Rabbi Ya'acov Minton emphasized this concept. He said, "Judaism regards our very existence is something that God is doing and not that God did." He explained, "There is a phrase in their daily morning prayer that reminds that at every moment, God is renewing the work of creation within us." Now, in order to choose God as our maker, there has to be the opportunity to choose the opposite.

I was shocked as I came across this scripture in my study. This is when the Chief judge of the Nephites period has just been murdered by those who wanted the judgment seat. And Helaman, chapter one, verse 11, it says

"And he went unto those that sent him, and they all entered into a covenant, yea, swearing by their everlasting maker, that they would tell no man that Kish command had murdered parent." As I read this, I was like, wait, hold on a second here, it is clear that these people are not following Jesus Christ. How? How are they swearing by the everlasting maker to do evil things? It's not possible. The logical explanation would be that they had chosen a different maker. They had chosen Satan to be their maker. Remember, as God gave us agency, this was the opposite of what Satan wanted to do. He wanted to keep power over us. Remove agency.

And that is his continued effort today: to have us have him as our maker, do things to diminish our ability to choose and give him the power over us that he has always wanted. We do need to be aware that Satan will offer his solutions and try to deceive us into choosing him as our maker.

His plan in the beginning was to destroy agency and it is still his plan today. Sometimes he convinces us that we can do this on our own. But just as Corrihor taught actually, that there could be no one to make atonement for the sins of men, but that every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature. Or he leads us to other things that give us a feeling of false restoration and peace. That is why President Nelson counseled us to

"avoid anything that robs you of your agency. Any addiction, be it gain, be it gaming, gambling, debt, drugs, alcohol, anger, pornography, sex, or even food offends God. Why? Because your obsession becomes your God. You look to it rather than to him."

For solace, as Satan would have us covenant with him, I believe the specific covenants we make with God were designed in wisdom to exactly counteract Satan's ability to have power over us. And Satan would say that to find our true self, we must just let go and answer every desire of the natural man.

When in reality we find who we truly are by obedience and sacrifice. Restraining the natural man. This foreign body that our glory his spirits have inhabited. That is who we really are. Spirits who chose God as their maker, trusted him to give us a body and trusted that if we would choose him as our maker again, it would unlock the power for him to restore and redeem. Not only to our former glory, but to a glorious being of spirit and body. Sadly, as it says in Helaman 12 six, "Behold, they do not desire that the Lord their God, who have created them, should rule and reign over them. Notwithstanding his great goodness and his mercy towards them, they do set at naught his counsels, and they will not that he should be their guide."

Those who choose Satan, they do not realize Satan's power has no comparison. In Helaman 5:12 we can see how Satan will have his try at controlling creation, but it will not stand. "And now, my sons, remember. Remember that is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God. That you must build your foundation. That when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the world wind. Yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless well, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation where on if men build, they cannot fall." Truly, what a frustrating predicament Satan is in. Christ overcomes all his efforts. All darkness is light. All that is good, all broken is fixed. He reverses all. He promised to fix all the broken pieces I thought I had to fix. This is his mercy. We choose to come to a fallen world. He promised to restore any and everything that might break. Because of that choice, he made sure it was a choice that could not possibly fail as long as we chose him.

And as we are restored, none of our trials can hinder us. In fact, they propel us forward. There are many other examples in the Book of Mormon of the difference between God's covenant power and Satan's. Look at the difference between these two battles. After Peter Oren is murdered by Kish, come in. The Lamanite army comes against Zarahemla, led by a Nephite named Coriantumr. The most strong and wise leader that they could find, he marched straight into the center of Zarahemla and easily took over the city, but it was short lived. They wanted to conquer more and as a result put themselves in a situation where they were completely surrounded by the Nephite armies, and Coriantumr was slain and the Nephites regained control of the city.

Short lived is a pretty good way to describe the kind of power Satan offers when covenanting with him. Now compared this battle to a battle led by God. This is one of the most well-known battles in the Book of Mormon, but let's see if we can learn something more here. You know what I'm going to talk about, right? The battle of the armies of Helaman.

If we go back several chapters to when this army was formed, we are reminded of where these men or boys came from. What were the examples that they had? They came from fathers who made a covenant and kept that covenant to the end of their lives, and their fathers, or the men who remember, killed their fathers, and then covenanted, repented, and covenanted never to take arms again themselves. They could not go to battle, and they were about to break that covenant. But these young men had already learned how important and powerful covenants were. And so in order to help those that they loved keep their covenants, they decided to enter into the power of a covenant of their own.

It says in Alma 53, verse 17, "and they entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites." This is what the mothers taught. This is what the mothers instilled in them. The power of covenants. And it's really interesting. Remember I said they entered into a covenant specifically to fight for the liberty of the Nephites? And if you go and look at what caused them to be able to go into this battle with no fear or doubt, what does it say in verse 47 of Alma 56, "they did not fear death, they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers."

That was their covenant, their power to overcome doubt and fear came because they kept their mind, their thoughts, focused on the covenant. And because of that, what happened in this battle and in the next battle, because of the covenant, they knew how to obey commands with exactness. And we know we know the rest of the story. In the next battle, many of them were injured. In fact, all of them were injured, but none of them died, which wasn't the case for any other army.

In Alma 57:26, "they were preserved and spared because of the miraculous power of God." This power that came because they were covenant keepers.

Sometimes I like to write down my own Declaration from the profound things I have learned from this scripture story. So this is what I wrote after studying the stripling warriors. But I hope you will hear it as your own declaration as well. I look at my limited capacity physically and spiritually, and I know I of myself am not sufficiently strong to contend with what I am up against. But when asked to stop my direction, the logical direction, and instead turn around and head straight into the exact thing I was just running from, not knowing fully the circumstance, I will walk into. The only way I can take even one step forward is to gather my faith, call upon the power of my covenants and God as my maker, and say, "My God is with me, and he will not suffer that I should fall. Let me go forth." Yes, I am inexperienced and unlikely candidate, never held this weapon, fought this battle, never done before. What God is asking me to do now, and facing an opponent that is far more skilled than I, in fact, facing the most powerful opponent of them all. But I have made covenants, and I have been taught by mothers that if I keep my thoughts more upon my covenant relationship with Christ, and do not doubt God will deliver me, I have witnessed the power of keeping covenants from those who have sacrificed before me, and I will sacrifice all as well. I will fight with the miraculous, mighty, frightening strength of God, firm and undaunted, obeying and observing to perform every word of his command with exactness, knowing that according to my faith in accessing the power of my covenants, it will be done unto me in the end it will be covenant keepers with Jesus Christ, to whom we owe the great victory. To the astonishment of all, though receiving many wounds, we will be spared and preserved despite great loss, and it all will be ascribed to the miraculous power of God. Because of our exceeding faith and what we have been taught to believe that there is a just God and whosoever does not doubt, they should be preserved by his marvelous power.

This is the faith of women who know how to access the power God makes available to covenant keepers. Their minds are firm and they do put their trust in God continually. Back to my story of why I was led to this study in the first place. Finding myself in a battle that I was too weak to fight on my own. Though I had tried, finally trusting in Psalm 100, verse three, "know ye that the Lord he is God. It is he that hath made us, and not we have ourselves. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." And hearing the words of our prophet in my ears, "Faith in Jesus Christ propels us to do things we otherwise would not do. Faith that motivates us to action gives us more access to his power. When you spiritually stretch beyond anything you have ever done before, then his power will flow into you." So I did something I otherwise would not do. I knew God's will was to remove this mountain of the past wounds from me. So I stretched beyond anything I had done before.

And God kept his promise. With out all the details that are sacred to me, I'll just say I asked for God's power as my maker, to restore and redeem me. And in that very moment, the pain, resentment, shame, trauma, grief, rejection was simply gone. But I was not returned to who I was before. I felt I was made new and more capable of shining the light of Christ. For a few days it felt unreal, like I was in a dream. It was such a foreign feeling to have such complete relief, and I wondered if the pain would return. But over and over again the spirit reassured me that I had been healed and that I could rejoice, should rejoice and express gratitude. This experience added much needed oil to my lamp, the oil of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

I've mentioned before that I had an experience where the Lord spoke to me, the same words that were spoken to the foolish virgins. "Ye know me not." I have been on a diligent journey since then to learn what it is to know him, and one reason I didn't know the Lord is because I had not allowed him to completely heal me. There was things I was holding back to fix on my own. The oil used for lamps was olive oil, which was literally used as healing ointment for wounds. Let's fill our vessels with this healing oil as we draw closer to his coming, so we can be a more effective light. We all have this power available to us. Your story may look different than mine, but I know God is in your story and he will make of you more than you can make of yourself. D&C 105:14 "For behold, I do not require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion. For as I said in a former commandment. Even so will I fulfill. I will fight your battles."

But just as all creation has to obey his command, we have to at least be like the dust of the earth and let his voice command us. A perfect quote to end this episode. Until next time. President Nelson said,

"We all have our agency. We can choose to be of Israel or not. We can choose to let God prevail in our lives or not. We can choose to let God be the most powerful influence in our lives or not. Are you willing to let God prevail in your life? Are you willing to let God be the most important influence in your life? Will you allow his words, his commandments, and his covenants to influence what you do each day? Will you allow his voice to take priority over any other? Are you willing to let whatever he needs you to do? Take precedence over every other ambition?

Are you willing to have your will swallowed up in His? 

Jesus Christ is our maker. Jesus Christ is hope. Smiling brightly.